Honest June: Secrets and Spies - Hardcover

Wells, Tina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593378946 ISBN 13: 9780593378946

Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

After a run-in with her fairy godmother, June must always tell the truth. Which is a lot easier when you’re not dealing with friendship, first love, and the fallout from a big family secret. An enchanting trilogy readers won’t want to miss. Honestly.

June’s school musical ended with a surprising finale—her private blog was revealed for everyone to see. Now the whole town knows her real thoughts, and they aren’t too happy.  

Things only get worse when June makes a surprising discovery about the history of Featherstone Creek…and her own family. With a secret this big, will June ever be able to keep from blurting out the truth?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tina Wells is the founder of RLVNT Media, a multimedia content venture serving entrepreneurs, tweens, and culturists with authentic representation. Tina has been recognized as one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, Essence’s 40 Under 40, and Cosmopolitan’s Fun Fearless Phenom Award winners. She is the author of nine books, including the bestselling tween fiction series Mackenzie Blue; its 2020 spinoff series, The Zee Files; and the marketing handbook Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right.

Brittney Bond was born in sunny South Florida to a Jamaican family. A self-taught artist, she works primarily digitally, with a passion for using appealing color palettes, intriguing lighting, and a magical and positive aura throughout her illustrations.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One


I sat in the office of the Featherstone Post, ready for our Monday editorial meeting, uncomfortably silent. Which, for me, was unusual. I loved writing for the school paper, and I was usually full of amazing, super-juicy story ideas. But no one wanted to hear what I was thinking. Because no one wanted to talk to me. They had good reason.

I had made a hot stinking mess of things for myself at school. After living a peaceful, friendly existence in Featherstone Creek for most of my eleven years, things took a turn and I managed to insult practically everyone at Featherstone Creek Middle School. Let me explain.

A few months earlier, at the Featherstone Creek Festival, I met a woman--er, fairy godmother--named Victoria. She put me under a spell that forced me to tell the truth at all times. The truth about everything--my feelings, a friend’s new haircut, whether or not I did my homework--everything. To everyone.

The spell, according to Victoria, was supposed to better my life. Help me live my real truth. Find inner peace or something like that. Instead, it made me stir up more drama than ever. I had a massive argument with my parents at a restaurant, where I yelled at the top of my lungs that I didn’t want to go to Howard University--the college my dad went to--and be a lawyer just like him. I got put on punishment for several weeks. Then my friend Lee told me he wanted to hang out with my friend Nia. But I kinda maybe had a crush on him, and I didn’t want my best friends to be boyfriend and girlfriend. So I didn’t tell Nia how Lee felt, and Nia and I got into a huge fight when the truth eventually came out.

For my whole life I’d been used to keeping my thoughts to myself instead of telling people what I really thought, for fear of punishment or rejection or conflict. Victoria’s pushing me to share my thoughts all the time wasn’t easy for me. So I tried to get around her rules by starting a blog that would be a safe place for me to share my feelings when I thought the truth would be too much to handle. But it backfired.

I wrote down the good, the bad, the ugly, the petty, and the downright mean stuff that I thought about everyone, especially during rehearsals for the recent school musical, The Wiz. I wrote about my very confusing feelings for Lee, and how jealous I was about his feelings for Nia, and how I didn’t want to tell Nia he liked her. I thought the blog was safe. I thought a password with numbers and letters would be enough to keep it secure. Until I found out my best friend hacked it and leaked my words to the world. Shoulda considered two factor-authentication.

Now the entire population of Featherstone Creek had canceled me.

Okay, mayyyyyybe I’d done something to deserve it. I did write a journal of truths I was too scared to say out loud, truths that were both nasty and nice (okay, mostly nasty). And, yes, I talked the most trash about Nia, my best friend who leaked the blog. The karma is not lost on me.

So I apologized. I wrote a column in the school newspaper explaining myself. And I’m still apologizing. I know I messed up big-time. I know people still think I’m dirt. And I know it’s going to take time for people to forgive me.

But until they do, I try to make myself as unseen as possible, sitting quietly in the back of the room, head down, quiet as a church mouse in our newspaper meeting.

I looked down at my notes, pretending to be busy but really struggling to swallow the lump of loneliness in my throat. I wondered how long I would be left out in the cold.

Suddenly Quincy Aarons walked into the newsroom, talking quickly, his short dreadlocks bouncing with every word.

“I told you, I think it’s true,” he said animatedly to someone behind him. “I heard it the other day.”

“You sure?” his friend asked.

“I’m positive. My father’s cousin told me. And whatever he says is always true. He’s picked the Super Bowl winners three years running. I trust him.”

Quincy took a seat at one of the desks near the computers across from me, still talking with his hand flailing about whatever bit of gossip he thought was the biggest news of the day. Then Ms. West walked into the room. We all sat up and became quiet in her presence, ready to pitch stories. “Who’s got something for me?” Ms. West said in greeting.

Quincy perked up. “I’ve got something. And it’s big. Like, huge!”

Ms. West smiled at Quincy and took out a notebook. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“A’ight,” Quincy said, pausing for effect. “I heard from my father’s cousin, who heard it from someone at the car wash. There’s a big secret behind the people who founded Featherstone Creek. Nothing is what it seems.”

“What does that even mean?” said Rachelle, raising one of her full eyebrows. “This isn’t a story.”

“Yes, it is!” Quincy said. “It’s the biggest story we all should be reporting on right now! The truth behind Featherstone Creek. Don’t you want to know? Everyone wants to know!”

“The truth is that Featherstone Creek was founded by freed slaves,” said Jaron Williams, a seventh grader with braces and fair skin, freckles splashed across his cheeks. “Black people. This town was built and settled and continues to be built by Black people. For us, by us, fam.”

“Not what I heard,” Quincy said.

“What did you hear?” Ms. West said.

“That that’s not all there is to the story.”

“But you don’t know what the actual story is?” Rachelle asked, resting her chin on her hand. Quincy stopped talking. Everyone looked at him, waiting for his answer. He stayed quiet.

“Then you don’t have a story!” Rachelle fired back.

Quincy stammered, “I--I will soon.”

The rest of the room joined in the chatter. But I sat back in my chair, silent. I was curious. Could there be a different story behind the founding of Featherstone Creek? My parents had told me the same story of the town’s founding for as long as I could remember. That it was founded by freed slaves, some of them my ancestors. That my family was part of the town’s long lineage of settlers and business owners. My mother is a third-generation doctor running a practice in Featherstone Creek, and my father founded his law firm here because he, too, wanted to be part of the tradition of Black entrepreneurs in this town.

Ms. West jumped in to keep the peace. “Everyone--your job as reporters is to go find out if there is a story. Quincy obviously has a lead on something, and he’s chasing it. Maybe you all should do the same.”

I nodded and digested Ms. West’s words. Maybe there was something to the rumor. And maybe I could crack the real story before Quincy did. At the least, maybe I could distract myself from my own drama by researching the drama behind the town’s founding--and maybe other kids of Featherstone Creek would do the same. I could use the break, honestly.



We were a few weeks out from the annual spring camping trip to Lake Lanier, and there was no way I could see myself getting on a bus to go into the woods with people who truly thought I was the meanest of the mean girls.

Blake Williams, a new friend who had transferred to Featherstone Creek this fall, was more hopeful. She had visions of us bunking together in the woods and roasting marshmallows by the fire. “Seriously, no one’s gonna remember this on the camping...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593378946
• ISBN 13: 9780593378946
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Zeichner: Bond Brittney
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar